Avenue Azure is the duo of Pete Harden and Saskia Lankhoorn, coastal-based musicians on The Hague’s North Sea. Written and performed by the duo, their debut album is a collection of “almost-songs”, an intimate, enveloping listen featuring the pellucid timbres of electric guitar and piano, with occasional spectral vocals and emulsive electronics. The music traces landscapes, skies, and seas, music of transition, that shrouds the listener in a dark comfort.
Pete Harden (guitar, electronics) and Saskia Lankhoorn (piano, voice, electronics) have a shared history of playing and touring, espying the beauty of the estranging world of travel – these experiences inspire the duo. Aside from individual work as composer and concert soloist respectively, they have been performing together in the contemporary music sextet Ensemble Klang since 2003, collaborating with some of the most highly acclaimed composers working today, with concerts across Europe and in the US. Avenue Azure arose from a desire to seek out new ways of working, blurring the process of creating and performing to bring the listener closer to the intimate element of sound itself.
“[Saskia Lankhoorn] … is a virtuoso of contemporary music…” – The New York Times
“[Pete Harden’s music] forms a phantasmagorical folio” – Libération
New project: Lightness
Lightness is a concert featuring stories, music, spoken and sung text. It explores sensory perception by verbally describing visual experiences and musically translating colors. What does red sound like? How do you describe green without seeing it? And how do we experience art and music collectively, while our individual perceptions remain unique?
The performance is inspired by a remarkable moment in art history: in October 1907, writer Rainer Maria Rilke visited an exhibition of Paul Cézanne’s work. In letters to his wife, he described his sensory experiences of the paintings—not only as love letters to her, but also as an ode to Cézanne’s art. The exhibition has largely been lost, and Rilke’s descriptions now serve as a speculative, poetic catalogue of what might have been on display. At the same time, his words are the only image we have of the exhibition.
Lightness combines a new composition by Pete Harden with texts by Rilke and contemporary reflections on sensory experience. Set in darkness, the performance seeks to evoke abstract colors, textures, and landscapes.
The dramaturgy and text are created by Avenue Azure and Belgian writer Tomas Serrien. Serrien has conducted research on the experience of music among people with sensory impairments. He wrote about this in his book Sound: A Philosophy of the Musical Experience.
Concerts
18 June 2025 – Lightness Sneak preview, Kloosterkerk, The Hague
6 July 2025 – Lightness Premiere, The Big Sing, Haarlem
21 Sep 2025 – Tromp Percussion Concert, Muziekgebouw, Eindhoven
28 Nov 2025 – Lightness, Korzo, The Hague
Contact pete [at] ensembleklang.com
